


northern lights guide me back to you

by nateheywood



Series: Coldwave Winter Week 2018 [1]
Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Christkindlmarket, Christmas, Coldwave Winter Week 2018, Cute, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Married Couple, Married Life, Road Trips, Snow, Winter, and therefore they WILL, and they do all the stupid tourist trap stuff because they CAN, basically len and mick go on a vacation because they need a break, cross country road trip, desperately, hints of angst, i tried to squeeze many a headcanon into this fic, jealous!Len, they c u d d l e
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-22 07:14:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17055506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nateheywood/pseuds/nateheywood
Summary: Almost the second they finish Savage off, Len decides they’re bailing.“You want to leave?” Mick asks him that night, disbelieving. If Len wants to leave, he’ll go with him - there’s no way he’s allowing his husband out of sight again, not after the Oculus - but if he can talk him out of it, he will. Leaving now makes this whole stint feel like just another job, which it definitely isn’t.“Not like that,” Len says from across the bed, an edge to his voice. "Like a break."Or, in which Mick and Len go on an incredibly, tooth-rottingly domestic cross country road trip.





	northern lights guide me back to you

**Author's Note:**

> I do NOT know how I feel about this... I think it's cute but who knows ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ anyways coldwave winter week is hard and i still have two and a half fics to go
> 
> prompts i chose were on the run/road trip & #24 Northern Lights and #41 Festive Market
> 
> hope you enjoy!

Almost the second they finish Savage off, Len decides they’re bailing.

“You want to leave?” Mick asks him that night, disbelieving. If Len wants to leave, he’ll go with him - there’s no way he’s allowing his husband out of sight again, not after the Oculus - but if he can talk him out of it, he will. Leaving now makes this whole stint feel like just another job, which it definitely isn’t.

“Not like that,” Len says from across the bed, an edge to his voice. He’d gotten a little defensive when Mick’s response to his “We’re leaving. Tomorrow.” was not an immediate agreement, and is now as far away from Mick as possible while still remaining on the mattress.

Len doesn’t offer any sort of elaboration, letting silence stretch out for long enough that Mick’s temper flares up. 

“Then like what?” Mick snaps more than asks. Len’s tendency to be cryptic drives Mick insane on the best of nights.

Len sighs, like Mick is missing something obvious and it’s causing him a great deal of pain to explain it to him. He looks at the ceiling. “Like a break,” he says, in such a tone that he doesn’t even have to tack the ‘ _ obviously _ ’ onto the end. He flicks his eyes back to Mick, assessing his reaction.

Mick raises his eyebrows at his tone, but lets it go, reigning in his anger despite physically feeling his last shreds of patience leave his body. He’s learned to pick his battles with Len.

When he figures out that Len is just going to look at him until he responds, he sighs. “Wanna elaborate on that?”

“I was thinking a road trip,” Len says airily. “Star City to Eastport. The whole nine yards.”

Mick is immediately on board, any irritation forgotten. “Death Valley?” he asks, before he shows Len his enthusiasm. He’d asked to go once, when they did a job in Star City, but Len had refused on the grounds that both he and his cold gun would immediately melt as soon as he stepped out of the car.

“Death Valley,” Len says, although he’s pressing his lips together. Mick laughs at him.

“You can stay in the car with the air conditioning,” he tells him, scooting across the bed and grinning. He pulls Len in for a kiss, cradling his face as Len melts into it. 

“You need a break,” Len says when they pull apart, softened by the contact.

“ _ You  _ need a break.” 

Len lays back down, his silence as close to an agreement as Mick is going to get, and Mick goes with him, wrapping his arms around his partner’s stomach securely.

“D’ya think Rip will let us go?” he asks, voice muffled because it’s buried in the nape of Len’s neck.

“I don’t think  _ Rip _ has a choice.”

-

Rip does, actually, have a choice, but it’s only because he agrees with them.

“I think a break would do us all well,” he announces while they’re all hunched over coffee and Ray’s Famous Cheesy Delight, which is just a cheese omelette that tastes unnaturally good despite the fact that it’s just cheese and eggs. After a few experiments, they’d all concluded that Ray must have some secret ingredient. Ray maintains that the ingredient is extra love.

Mick immediately makes eye contact with Len in a silent question, to which Len just shrugs. He hadn’t somehow bullied the idea into Rip, then.

“A break?” Sara asks, sounding testy. Rip must pick up on it, because he continues with a reassuring note in his voice.

“A few months, yes. I have some business to take care of, and you all are…” he trails off, looking at them all one by one before he lands on Mick and Len. “...a little worn out, I’d say.”

It’s such an understatement that Mick snorts, earning himself a glare from Rip. 

“Are we all in agreement?” he asks, clapping his hands together and ignoring Mick otherwise. They all nod with various degrees of enthusiasm, Stein and Kendra looking particularly excited. “Very well, then. I’ll drop you all off in Central City, November 2016, and pick you up on February 15th, 2017. Then, you can decide if you want to continue on the Waverider or not.”

“Is that all, Captain?” Len asks, sounding bored. Rip just nods shortly.

“That is all.”

-

After a week of visiting Lisa, they leave for San Francisco by plane. After exploring the Golden City for a few days, they get a rental car and begin their trip, each stop marked out on a map Len nabbed at the Central City Airport. 

The first ‘X’ on it is the National Redwood Forest, and once they climb out of the car to crane their necks to see the tops of the trees, Mick suddenly understands why Lisa pressed a fancy camera into his hands before they left. The look of awe on Len’s face as he stands beneath the giant trees is too wonderful to not immortalize.

They go to Death Valley from there, path already strange and loopy, but they have three months, so they don’t care. Len lets Mick blast the radio even though he doesn’t like it, and Mick lets Len roll the windows down even though it’s cold as fuck outside. They hold hands while they drive and snap pictures of each other, Len having discovered Mick sneaking one while they were in Death Valley. Len had actually gotten out with Mick, the temperature a comfortable 65℉ in the middle of December, and Mick hadn’t been able to resist taking a picture of Captain Cold enjoying himself in the hottest place on Earth.

It’s a blur of good times and tourist traps, and the first stop of real note doesn’t happen until they hit Chicago.

They’ve been having a strangely flawless vacation, so far. Len’s plan to do “straight married tourist things” at every stop had Mick wary, at first - they seem incapable of doing normal things, especially together - but he’d gone along with it because the gleam in Len’s eye told him that it wasn’t just for Mick’s benefit. Now, he’s wary for a different reason: the ball is going to drop. Inevitably. Even normal people don’t have vacations this nice, especially when they go on a Grand Canyon Mule Ride.

Once they get into the city, they book a hotel somewhere downtown, amongst the gleaming silver skyscrapers and the lakefront out in front of them. Go big or go home, has been the motto for this trip.

Currently, they’re sitting in their very fancy hotel room, morning sun peeking out from behind the curtains. Mick thinks it’s perfect for morning sex. Len thinks it’s perfect for planning out their day.

“What special things can you do in Chicago?” Len mutters, but it’s mostly to himself, as his nose is nearly touching the hotel’s tourist brochure in his concentration. Mick doesn’t move from where he’s starfished across the bed, staring at the ceiling.

“All they have is the Bean,” Mick says. He’s been angling for a day in the hotel for a few hours now, but Len doesn’t seem to be picking up on it. He’s usually blunt for a  _ reason _ , dammit. “Let’s fuck.”

Len doesn’t deign him a response. He brings the brochure closer to his face.

“Lenny,” Mick growls, sitting up. He wraps his arms around Len and pulls him down, so that he’s lying on top of him, back against Mick’s bare chest. Unfortunately, Len’s parka ruins any sort of a temptation Mick’s aforementioned bare chest might have provided, providing a protective layer around Len, the fur of the hood getting into Mick’s mouth. Len doesn't move his eyes away from the brochure, which doesn’t help.

“There’s the Sears Tower,” Len suggests. He removes one of his hands from the paper and entwines his fingers with one of Mick’s over his stomach. Mick sighs his defeat and squeezes his hand a little.

“At least let us steal somethin’.”

“There’s something called a ‘Christkindlmarket’? Holiday markets are easy pickings.”

Which is how they end up wedged in what has to be four hundred people in a space where one hundred and fifty is crowded.

What’s better, is that a particularly keen police officer spotted Len sneaking a cookie around three minutes ago, of all things _ ,  _ and the only thing keeping him from arresting them both is an old lady squished in between them.

“Excuse me, ma’am,” the police officer says, not unkindly, without breaking eye contact with Mick when he turns around to look. The old lady doesn’t move, either because she can’t with the crowd around them, because she’s deaf, or both, and the police officer resorts to decidedly less kindly measures. He tries to push past the old lady, instead succeeding in shoving her into Mick, who hits Len, who hits two men holding overflowing mugs of beer.

Len drops his cookie as beer sloshes all over him and his parka.

“My cook--Jesus  _ fucking  _ Christ!” he snaps, and suddenly he has Mick’s hand and is dragging him so forcefully through the crowd that Mick is pretty sure he’s bowled over three children by the time they get to an actual moving stream of people.

It’s unusual to find Len steaming while Mick is calm, and Mick is trying his hardest not to laugh at the vein that pops up on Len’s temple when the woman in front of him stops to let an old man past. It’s like a dam is broken: a river of people rush through behind him, and their steady stream is forced to a standstill. 

They get out eventually, the police officer wedged between what looks like a bodybuilder and a gangly teenager so tightly he can’t even reach his radio, and Len immediately starts speed walking in the direction of the hotel, Mick still holding in his smile.

“Mother _ fucker, _ ” Len sneers, shedding his parka in disgust and shoving it into Mick’s arms, putting a foot’s distance between them. Mick almost snaps at him, smile disappearing, before he smells the beer wafting up from it.

“Want my coat?” he asks instead, and Len just shakes his head, staring straight ahead. 

Mick waits until Len’s hands stop their slight tremble, and then he shows no mercy. 

“A cookie?” he opens, and Len is already rolling his eyes. “If we were gonna go down for a cookie, you could’ve at least kept it.”

“Mick, I swear--”

“You know, with the way she was lookin’ at you, you probably could have gotten it for free.”

“It wouldn’t have tasted as good, and you know it.”

“Actually, I don’t, because we never got to taste--”

“Mick?” Len interrupts, and Mick gives his sweetest smile.

“Yeah?”

“Shut up.”

Mick laughs all the way back to the hotel, and almost doubles over when Len throws the brochure in the trash can. “Don’t give up on your dreams, Lenny,” he manages to gasp out. “I’m sure--”

“Watch it,” Len warns, coming closer with a smirk. “You might lose the privilege of joining me in the shower.”

Mick shuts up. 

They have a nice day in the hotel.

They spend three more days in Chicago before getting back on the road, and Mick stares at two hours worth of snow covered corn fields before their car suddenly starts sputtering and Len has to pull off into one of them. 

“Hm,” is all Len says, before looking at Mick expectantly. Mick narrows his eyes.

“No.”

“I don’t know how--”

“Bullshit.”

“You’re better at--”

“ _ Bullshit. _ ”

They stare at each other before Len comes up with a winning card. “I don’t have a coat.” And with that, he sits back and looks so smug that Mick considers making him go out in the snow with just his black sweater on.  _ But,  _ because he is a good husband, he does not.

“You can always wear mine, you know,” Mick grumbles even as he’s opening his door. He can see Len’s smirk through the windshield when he pops the hood up, and he pointedly raises it up further to block his view.

As he fiddles around, a van drives past. Some whistles and a “Nice ass!” are thrown at him. He ignores it, not thinking much of it, and continues not to think about it until he clambors back into the car to find Len wearing a pissy expression.

“It’s fixed,” he says warily. “Mouse crawled into the engine.”

“What was that van?” Len says suddenly, not starting the car like he should be.

Mick raises his eyebrows. “Nothing,” he says, because he doesn’t want to deal with this right now. Len still doesn’t start the car. “Do you want me to drive?”

“The windows were open,” Len presses, ignoring him. “They were laughing.”

“Yeah,” Mick says flatly. “S’what girls do when they compliment your ass.”

Len actually makes a move like he’s about to get out of the car and chase them, and Mick presses him back down.

“ _ Jesus _ , Len,” he says, although he’s secretly flattered. Len can  _ never  _ know he enjoys his jealous streak, he’s bad enough without being encouraged. “They don’t even know what I look like.”

Len stares at him for a few moments, unwavering, before he deflates and puts his hand on the keys. He’s still scowling, however. Mick kisses him. 

“They’re just having fun,” he continues, praying that Len will just  _ turn on the ignition.  _ It’s fucking  _ cold. _

“What they’re being is  _ disrespectful _ ,” Len says, and his hand falls away from the keys. Mick, completely over it, reaches over and turns them, letting out a breath when the engine sputters to life.

Len looks at him, affronted, and Mick holds his gaze. “You want to sulk, sit in the passenger seat,” he tells him simply. Len stares at him coolly for a while longer before unbuckling his seatbelt. 

“Was sick of driving, anyway,” he says, and Mick rolls his eyes before hopping back onto the road and leaving Illinois in the dust.

-

If Mick had Death Valley, Len has the Northern Lights.

It’s fitting: they bookend the trip, Mick at the start and Len finishing it off, like his feeling that things would always begin and end with them has somehow manifested itself into their roadtrip. 

At first Mick thinks that they’ll have to drive up to Alaska or Northern Canada to see the lights, but Len quickly reassures him that there’s a park up in Maine where they should be able to see the aurora when he makes a noise of disapproval. Mick pretends to only allow it because it was in the US, but they both know he would have sat through a sixty hour drive and the cold of Alaska if it meant Len could see his lights.

It takes them a few weeks from Chicago to get there, making stops in Boston (where Mick gets roaring drunk and expresses an intense desire to meet Samuel Adams), Nashville (in which Len allows Mick to listen to country music the whole way there), Myrtle Beach in South Carolina (in which they eat too much ice cream and spend the rest of the night in the hotel rather than on the beach), and crawl their way up the coast from there. 

They spend the longest amount of time in DC, Len dragging Mick from memorial to memorial and to various historic sites for about four days. Mick is mostly disinterested, the only real highlights being the National Museum of Art and a bronze statue that looks suspiciously like Mick (they make sure to get a picture of him with it), but it can’t be said that he does nothing for his husband.

After DC, they briefly touch NYC before heading straight to Aroostook National Wildlife Refuge at the very tip of Maine. They get a hotel about ten miles out from the park and collapsed on top of the covers as soon as they get into their room, exhausted from a drive through a bad blizzard.

The first three days are too cloudy to see the lights, and although they occupy themselves well enough with some hikes and several hours in the hotel room, Mick can see Len growing more and more disappointed and sulky. It gets to the point where if he leaves him alone for too long, he turns into a brick wall.

“I’m fine,” Len says, carefree, on the first day. “We can just explore.”

“It’s fine,” Len says mulishly on the second day. Mick has an easy time kissing it out of him.

“I’m  _ fine, _ ” Len snaps on the third day, and doesn’t lighten up until they find a breakfast place with the best pancakes either of them have ever had.

“We can leave tomorrow,” Len says on the fourth day, looking at the thick clouds that block out the sun on the fourth day. Mick, still in bed, looks at him knowingly. “It’s fine,” Len sighs, and he shuts the curtains with a little more force than necessary. “I’m over it. Let’s just sleep in.”

“As long as I don’t have to hear you whinin’ about it in the car,” Mick grumbles, but he hugs Len to him when he crawls back into bed. He’s better at physical comfort, anyway.

They lay around in bed until the sun starts to set around 3:45 pm, and Mick’s stomach starts to complain about the lack of food. Len lets him roll out of bed with little protest, watching as he walks to the phone.

“Ready for some Alaskan Chinese?” Mick asks, flipping through the restaurant catalogue. Len grimaces.

“It’s for the greater good,” he says, solemnly. They’d been trying the Chinese food at each stop, rating each city by best to worst. So far, Boston’s Chinatown was in the lead.

As Mick orders, making sure it aligns with what they’d been ordering at every place, he peeks out the window, half a mind to watch the sun set. He freezes.

He stops his order and hangs up without so much as a “nevermind”. 

“Lenny,” he says, opening the curtains and turning to look at Len. Len doesn’t look away from Kitchen Nightmares.

“Orange chicken,” he reminds Mick, narrowing his eyes in disgust as Gordon Ramsay scrapes mold from inside of a pantry. 

Mick scowls. “For fuck’s sake, Len, the sky’s cleared up.”

Len looks at him, probably more because of his tone then anything else, and then looks out the window when the words hit him. He’s out of bed like a shot.

“We have to go  _ now, _ ” he tells Mick urgently, throwing his boots on haphazardly and yanking his parka on over his sleep shirt. Mick is close to follow, and they’re speeding down the highway within three minutes.

Len’s driving, and he navigates them to a trail that will take them to an open field. Mick only barely remembers to grab the camera out of the back before they start walking, and they’re at the field in fifteen minutes, the sky pitch black now, glittering with stars and beautiful waves of purple, blue, green, and pink.

Len just stares at it, and Mick just stares at Len, at the way the stars reflect in his eyes.

“‘S this what you wanted?” he asks, hugging his coat closer to himself. He’s glad they managed to find a laundromat for Len’s parka, because there’s no way he would give him his coat now.

“It’s better,” Len says. His voice is quiet. “Prettier than even time itself.”

“Good,” Mick says, watching him carefully. “Good.”

-

They say yes to Rip when he comes to get them in February, and when Kendra and Carter turn him down, they convince them to withhold their answer and go on a roadtrip first.

“It helps,” Len says. “It really helps.”

Mick is pretty sure they know his silence is an agreement.

**Author's Note:**

> Christkindlmarket is based on my real-life nightmare experience, in which my entire family entered the block that the market was on and immediately left. Immediately leaving took over twenty minutes. nightmare experience.
> 
> ANYWAYS this isn't betaed so sorry for any mistakes!! hope you enjoyed!!!


End file.
